The One-Eyed Man
The day was hot, the sun beat down
and the road to town seemed endless ahead.
The air was stuffed, the wind was gone
and sweat poured runnels down my head.
I blinked away moisture,
and raised my eyes
for on the flat road beneath the sky
a figure moved.
Then I stopped and shaded my sight
so as not to be blinded by the light,
and I watched the shape sheffle near
growing inch by inch, but not tall enough to fear.
As the form drew closer
to where I stood
I strained my eyes as far as I could
and gazed until it molded into a man.
Upon this man I trained my study
for why should men shuffle so?
Then as he came closer
I realized he only had one good eye by which to go.
His left side was blind
he could only see out of his right.
I pitied him,
for I would not wish to be thus deprived of sight.
As he ambled along,
he caught sight of a group of folks.
They were sitting by the Right Side of the road
eating lunch and telling jokes.
They called a greeting and tossed him food
since he had no lunch of his own.
He thanked them and agreed to eat
since he wanted his gratitude to be shown.
But he did not, as I expected,
sit by the group on the Right Side.
Instead, he chose the middle of the road,
where he sat and undid the sack string, slow and patient as tide.
In time, some of the group needed to go
but they told him they'd come back.
Naturally, the man wished to know why they were leaving so soon,
he had barely had time to undo his sack.
They said to the Left Side of the road
lived a village, it was sitting in plain sight.
Indeed, I myself could see the houses,
but the man couldn't, he could only see the Right.
They said they had buisiness to attend,
they rose and crossed the street.
Even I suspected nothing unusual
as the road dirt they kicked up coated their feet.
Suddenly,
and for no reason that I could see,
they pulled from their coats weapons.
Too late, I shouted warning. Too late.
My warning went ignored,
it was useless delivered late.
The guns roared into action,
leading the village to a bloody fate.
I couldn't believe my eyes.
These folks had been passingly nice.
Yet they were massacring an innocent town
the way we might find and crush lice.
People were slaughtered like rabbits
as they fled from their torched homes.
Red blood drenched everything
the way rocks are drenched by sea foam.
The air grew stuffy as feelings whispered through it.
Anguish and fear and pain
all clogged the air like a blocked drain,
underlined by horror and confusion.
Smoke arose in great billows
while children crumpled in pools of blood.
And through it all, oblivious to the slaughter,
the one-eyed man sat like a cow chewing cud.
Time passed and the man got up,
calling farewell to the group he had eaten with.
But for the tension in the air,
I could have believed all the killing was a myth.
All at once, a very young pup
bounded from the bushes to his left.
of course the man didn't see it at all,
but a little boy followed, whistling frantically and calling "Sheft!"
He caught the dog in his arms
and was just turning back
when the group from the Right Side appeared,
guns loaded and ready for the child to tack.
One raised a pistol to aim.
Trapped, the boy cried out to the man though his voice trembled with pain.
But the one-eyed man only saw the Right Side.
He never noticed the commotion to his left
nor saw the click of small movement
as the group member tugged
the trigger.
But he certainly felt the bullet:
there was no friendly Right Group there to dull it.
For the smart young boy had dodged that lead
and the group from the Right Side got their ally instead.
The one-eye man doubled over,
too agonized to even make a sound.
The loud crack of the gun that ended his torture
echoed a resounding "boom boom boom" all around.
And the group on the Right Side returned,
as they had promised, to finish their lunches.
Copyright: 1996
Alaisha Makalaster